Salmon prices are climbing, but there’s still no cause to celebrate

“It’s late November and we’re trading under 50 kroner. But it [the salmon spot price] has risen a notch,” one exporter said to SalmonBusiness.

“A couple of kroner up I’d say. It’s at 48-50 kroner, I think,” said another.

“I hope it will last. There will be more fish next week,” he added.

Facts

SalmonBusiness collects spot prices for salmon every Friday after lunch. These are fish to be delivered the following week. Here we contact several members of the value chain, including farmers, exporters and importers. We always have at least five independent sources, although not all sources are necessarily displayed on print. We vary which sources we use, and do not use the same sources each time.

No rally
SalmonBusiness’ five industrial sources refer to the following farm gate prices (in Norway) for fish to be delivered next week:

3-4 kilograms NOK 48-49 (€4.9-5.0)

4-5 kilograms NOK 49-50 (€5.0-5.1)

5-6 kilograms NOK 50-53 (€5.1-5.4)

“Here is enough fish, so there will be no rally,” said a third exporter to SalmonBusiness.

The market is awaiting.

“It’s a bit up, one to two kroner. It would have easy if the price had been like last Friday, but when the price goes up it takes som time to settle.”

Break
This implies that the salmon prices continue to evolve in line with what we saw last year – which gave a break to the normal seasonal pattern with a sharp rise in prices in the late autumn.

“49, 51 and 53 kroner, I hear. It is not particularly encouraging with the euro [exchange rate vs NOK] we currently have,” said a salmon farmer. “But it’s good for building a market,” he added.